The 52 connector to the 67 freeway is opening March 19!

The 52 freeway connector to the 67 is opening March 19! This makes Rice RV more easily-accessible to people in Clairemont, Tierrasanta, La Jolla and other areas. We will be at the March 19 ribbon cutting ceremony/community festival. We expect an additional 10 to 15,000 people driving by our lot on the 67 every day! More info on the grand opening here: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/5555

Two more videos of the cabin cruiser ride, fast and slow

Boat ride on San Diego Bay

We had a fun day tooling around San Diego in a 28' cabin cruiser we have for sale on the lot (sea trial to make sure everything works!). It's amazing the variety of sights on the bay - Navy vessels on one side, skyscrapers, yachts in the harbor and, this weekend, tall ships shooting cannons at each other! The Festival of Sail was going on, with tall ship rides, complete with mock battles. People used to cross the ocean in these things!

The "RV Boat"

That's what our kids call it. This 28' Maxum cabin cruiser is for sale on our lot. The owner let us take it out for a sea trial this weekend to make sure all systems are working well. If it doesn't sell, he might consider letting us rent it, like we do with our consignment RV rentals. It sleeps 6 or more (you could cram 3 or 4 kids in the mid cabin and the seats on the deck fold into beds). There is a "wet bath" (toilet and shower in one), stove, fridge, water heater, fresh water tank, etc. With a GPS system and marine radio, it would be a great boat to take to Catalina Island for a weekend. There are also several anchorages around San Diego where you can drop your anchor for the weekend and camp on your boat.

Camping 10 minutes from home!

An RV, a golf cart, a some hot dogs and marshmallows, a couple of kids and grandkids, a 10-minute drive from home - all making for a surprisingly relaxing weekend camping trip. We had just gotten a new engine in the rental fleet's 32' Storm class A RV. We thought we had better try it out because it had been out of commission for a while. We had a couple of visiting grand-daughters, Kimi and Kendra, 4 and 8, who had never camped in an RV before, plus our 3 younger kids, ages 4, 14 and 16.

I don't know why it seems so much more relaxing to stay in an RV, even close to home, and even if you run to work for a couple hours a day. Maybe it's because at home you find so many things that need cleaning and organizing, but in the RV you just relax.

For the first time, we took a golf cart to a campground. This comes in handy at the long, narrow Santee Lakes property, with a water park at the opposite end of the park from the campsites. We are thinking maybe we should offer golf carts to our rental customers too!

Nick drives the big golf cart

(with Mom's help)

New boat department

It started with a couple trade-ins and Dan's attempt two years ago to rent consigned boats the way we do motor homes (the insurance was too expensive, so that did not work out).  We had some boats on the lot and people who spotted them would stop by.  With more and more boat buyers coming to us, we now have a Marine Department manager, Patrick, who sells and services boats.  He will be bringing in more boats to sell over the next few months.